The Days Of Her Life

Soap-opera fan Monica Lewinsky is the new face of
scandal. And she lives at the Watergate

By Romesh Ratnesar

(TIME, February 2) -- When Monica Lewinsky worked in the White House, she had
nicknames. One was Elvira, after TV's vampy Mistress of the
Dark -- a snickering reference to Lewinsky's long and big black
hair, her fondness for tight, chest-hugging outfits and her
coquettish demeanor. Another sobriquet was the Stalker, inspired
by her steadfast rush toward the presidential helicopter
whenever its whirr announced a landing. She was a child of
Beverly Hills privilege -- and the product of a bitterly broken
home. She delighted in soap operas and glitter; yet she
gravitated toward the political hotbed of Washington. She is now
the face, the name for scandal, her image frozen in public first
impression with that wide smile, in that less-than-flattering
photograph. But as her lawyer said last week, she is also a
young woman "devastated, concerned, upset and fearful" as she
confronts some of the country's most powerful people, including
the President of the U.S.

Monica Samille Lewinsky arrived in Washington in 1995 at the age
of 21, fresh out of college, with no background in politics but
with a prized Washington asset: connections. Her mother Marcia
Lewis, an author and socialite, lives at the Watergate (not far
from the Doles, Lewis liked to tell associates); more important,
Monica's mother knew Walter Kaye, a retired New York City
insurance magnate and generous contributor to the Democratic
Party. Kaye recommended Monica for a summer internship at the
White House, a job she probably would not otherwise have landed.
Monica "was excited about it," says a close college friend. "She
enjoys hobnobbing." Especially with the famous and powerful. It
was a trait that ran in the family. Says an associate of Lewis:
"[She] likes the glitterati and the big names, and if young
Monica got starry-eyed, it just kind of fits."

Lewinsky started out in the office of the President's then chief
of staff, Leon Panetta. In carrying out the duties of
internship, she was attentive verging on ingratiating. She
reportedly had a habit of bringing coffee to staff members who
had not asked for any. "She was more interested in schmoozing
with staffers than with other interns," says a former intern who
worked with Lewinsky in the fall of 1995. She was particularly
taken with the President. Aides last week described her as
starstruck. "She was drawn to the power of the White House and
knowing the President," says the former intern. When Lewinsky
took a staff position in the White House's Office of Legislative
Affairs in December 1995, she couldn't hide her ambivalence.
"She was like, 'yeah, yeah' -- she wasn't that excited," says the
co-worker. "When she said that, it struck me as kind of odd,
because most people would die for that position." The job would
move her out of the busy Old Executive Office Building and into
the comparatively quiet East Wing, and farther from Clinton.

According to her taped conversation with Linda Tripp, Lewinsky
began her alleged trysts with the President around the time she
began her new job. She would show up at official events in the
Rose Garden where she had no role, according to White House
sources. Staff members were seeking ways to get Lewinsky out of
the White House. When Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon asked the
White House personnel office for candidates to fill the job of
his personal assistant, the White House sent over only Monica's
name. Bacon interviewed four people and in April 1996 hired
Lewinsky for the job, which pays $30,658 a year. Bacon maintains
he can recall no conversations about Lewinsky with J. Robert
Nash, director of White House personnel. "There was no pressure
to hire her whatsoever." And he dismissed Pentagon grumblings
that Lewinsky lacked the experience for the position. "The job
is demanding, and the trips are very difficult," Bacon says. "I
felt it would be good to have a younger person in the job."

But her youth showed. Reporters attending Bacon's press
conferences complained about Lewinsky's bumbling of clerical
tasks, which included managing Bacon's schedule, preparing
transcripts and answering phones. She was known for spending too
much time on personal calls. A Pentagon acquaintance says
Lewinsky rarely talked politics, chatting instead about her
father and his wealth; she came off as flighty and flirty, "a
rich Beverly Hills teen and all the insouciance that suggests."
Other Pentagon officials said she was "an opportunist" and a
"spoiled brat" who took advantage of her political connections.
"She was an attractive girl," says a Pentagon source, "but a
girl."

Buoyant and tirelessly talkative, Lewinsky freely discussed
intimate details about her personal life. According to the
Washington Post, Lewinsky told a Pentagon co-worker that she had
had a liaison with a high-ranking Defense Department official,
and asked for advice because the official seemed to have lost
interest. (When reached by the paper, the official declined to
comment.) Still, there was another mysterious, unidentified
boyfriend whom reporters and Pentagon officials would jokily
tease her over and for whom she often bought
presents -- including, during an official European trip, cigars.
Various reports last week had her buying Clinton gifts and
shuttling them to the White House. Her interest in him was clear
if slightly muffled. She hung a photograph of herself with
Clinton on her office wall -- unexceptional homage by a civil
servant for her ultimate boss. But there were also knowing
asides and finally, extraordinary declarations. A midlevel
official remembers standing outside Bacon's office with Lewinsky
six months ago, watching as an image of Clinton flashed across
the television screen. Her eyes on the TV, Lewinsky said, "I
gave the President that tie." Then, in an untaped conversation
with Tripp, Lewinsky allegedly held up a dress she claimed was
stained with the President's semen and said, "I'll never wash it
again."

Monica Lewinsky grew up in a $1.6 million Beverly Hills home.
Her parents owned three cars, including a Cadillac and a
Mercedes, and spent freely on themselves (symphony season
tickets, artwork and wine) and on Monica and her brother
Michael, including tennis lessons ($720 a month), baby sitting
($300 a month) and hairstyling for Monica ($100 a month).
Vacations frequently involved spending amounts in excess of
$20,000 a year. The monthly psychiatrist's bill was $1,800.

Then in 1987, Marcia Lewis filed for divorce from her husband,
Dr. Bernard Lewinsky, who headed a lucrative oncology practice.
She accused Lewinsky of carrying on an affair and having "a
violent temper" that induced profanity-strewn tirades against
her and the children. Meanwhile, Dr. Lewinsky charged Lewis with
running up his credit-card bills in anticipation of the divorce.
The settlement downsized the family's life-style; Bernard
Lewinsky, who paid $6,000 a month in spousal and child support
after the settlement, now lives in a one-story stucco house. It
is worth $700,000, but it lies in a modest section of Brentwood,
a few blocks from Nicole Brown Simpson's house.

Following the split, Lewis became an occasional contributor of
gossip to the Hollywood Reporter and in 1996 published The
Private Lives of the Three Tenors, a quickie biography of Jose
Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti gushing with
tales of the singers' amorous adventures. Her publisher, Steven
Schragis of Birch Lane Press, says Lewis recommended that the
book's publicity notes include this teaser: "How did the author,
a glamorous Beverly Hills writer formerly with the Hollywood
Reporter, get all the inside dope? She denies rumors she and
Domingo were more than friends in the '80s, but read the book
and see what you think." Last week the tenor said he knew Lewis
"socially" but denied any liaison: "She came to several of my
performances over the years. But that is all."

The Lewinskys' divorce came just as Monica entered Beverly Hills
High School. Eden Sassoon, 24, and the daughter of celebrity
hair stylist Vidal Sassoon, was a classmate who would often have
Lewinsky over to her house. "She was not my best friend. She was
sort of a hanger-on," says Sassoon. "She was very outgoing,
sweet, charming. If you needed anything, she'd always help.
Growing up in Beverly Hills, well, you know it's different, and
perhaps being overweight, she'd overcompensate to please."

Lewinsky left Beverly Hills High abruptly during her junior
year. At Bel Air High, a tiny $12,000-a-year prep school
designed for smart kids facing personal problems, a more
self-assured Monica began to emerge. She got involved in drama,
the choral group and art. Still dealing with a weight problem,
she didn't have a boyfriend. But it was a more fulfilling time.
In her senior year, Lewinsky made valedictorian in a class of
seven. In the school yearbook Monica's senior year, a classmate
calls Lewinsky her "guardian angel." Lewinsky's page included
dedications to her parents, her brother and her friends and a
paean to her favorite soap opera, Days of Our Lives. The page is
also dotted with quotes from Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, William
Wordsworth--and Dr. Seuss ("It's fun to have fun but you have to
know how"). Her classmates voted her "most likely to have her
name in lights."

In 1993, after spending two years at Santa Monica College,
Lewinsky moved to Portland, Ore., and enrolled at Lewis and
Clark College, where she majored in psychology and made the
dean's list in her senior year. Those who knew her describe
Monica as a big-hearted and reliable friend. Recalls Dick
Morgan, a former neighbor: "She was a listener who was
interested in people." But some also remember her as
sharp-tongued and talking too much. She liked name dropping,
telling friends she knew Tori Spelling and the Menendez brothers
back in Beverly Hills High. (Spelling said last week that she
did not know Lewinsky.) She once spotted a teacher and student
together in a convertible and promptly dished the tidbit to her
friends. Yet a close friend says she was "very tight with a
number of professors."

Her garrulousness was her most impressive trait. "She felt
comfortable talking about just about anything to people," says a
former classmate. "If something was on her mind, she'd just come
up and start talking with you." But, says a close friend, she
"just had a proclivity for indiscretion...she was definitely a
gossipmonger." According to the friend, she openly told several
people while in college that she was having an affair with a
married man. "He gave her the standard 'I'm going to get
divorced and we can be together,' which is obviously a load of
crap, and she ate it up," says the friend. "And she got hurt a
number of times. She'd say, 'What the hell am I doing with this
married guy?'" She talked to a Beverly Hills therapist "quite a
bit" and cried often. "She's a pretty fragile person, just
emotionally fragile," her friend says. "She was not a depressed
person, but it's just that she was pretty sensitive." Stephen
Enghouse, a self-described classmate and friend, wondered aloud
last week if she has been concocting the whole sordid saga
involving the President, or at least dramatizing her role in it.
He told ABC's Nightline that "She's kind of young and seeks
attention...I think it's probably likely that yes, she's
making it up." Enghouse, though, has not spoken to Lewinsky in
nearly three years.

In Washington by the end of last year, Lewinsky was not having
much fun with her Pentagon job. "She wasn't too thrilled with
it," says a former co-worker. Bacon describes her as "competent"
but says he urged her last year to begin looking for some other
work. Vernon Jordan, the lobbyist who is a close confidant of
the President's, passed her name along to Revlon in New York
City. She was hired for a public relations job, an offer
rescinded last week when the scandal broke -- and Lewinsky got a
graduate degree in American politics.

Some fellow psychology majors from Lewis and Clark have banded
together--anonymously--to circulate a message of support:
"Monica is the epitome of a true friend." A couple of Website
fan clubs have also sprung up, but most of the Internet home
pages that revolve around her name are sardonic depositories of
tawdry humor. She faces countless depositions and grand-jury
testimonies and the possible charge that she perjured herself in
denying an affair with the President.

Last week, only a few words came directly from Lewinsky. They
were spoken to a CBS News reporter who reached her by phone at
an unlisted number at the Watergate. "I really can't comment,"
she said, sounding frazzled but polite, reluctant to displease.
"I'm very sorry, but I shouldn't have said this much. I don't
want to have to hang up on you." Surely it would have been
easier to be just another name, just another face.